Only valid for active forum users. Active means at least 30 postings within the last 30 days (no spam postings). This will automatically being checked at www.starbike.com shopping basket so make sure that you are logged in at the WW board!If there does not appear a WW discount position when you check out you do not have enough postings!

since you should have been riding before starting your 20-minute-segment that will give you your FTP value (a good warmup with some short, but not exhausting efforts) just roll into it. Ride endurance pace, press the "lap" button on your headunit and then move up to a power you expect to be able to hold for 20 minutes. If there's still alot left in the tank for the last 5 minutes or so, lift a little further. The very first test often isn't exactly great, because you don't have a good idea about your pacing yet.

If you do the test well, normalized and average power for the 20-minute-segment should be pretty much the same. If your normalized power is much higher, this is an indicator of bad pacing and therefore a suboptimal test. Your average power value will be kind of a value for "at the least", while the normalized value is an artificially calculated value, which might work well or not.

This is why it's important to find a place where you can ride without interruptions (traffic lights, intersections) or big changes in gradient. This is the reason that sometimes 2x8 minute blocks are used to test - although there's always been alot of debate whether a good FTP-Test should last 60, 20 or 8 minutes. Shorter testing means easier to do properly (pacing, motivation to suffer) but nobody can guarantee you that with the corrections (95% or 90%) the results will give you your maximum power for 60 minutes accurately.